Chapter 843  : Prelude

“Director Benjamin… Where is His Majesty?”

Half an hour after coming into contact with the informant at the tavern, Duke Collin hurried arrived. The first thing out of his mouth was to ask for the King’s whereabouts.

“You don’t have to panic, sir Duke,” Benjamin, however, gave him a smile, and spoke calmly. “His Majesty is very well now, and has always been in a safe place, ready to return to the throne.”

Duke Collin immediately asked, “Where is His Majesty? Can we see him?”

Nevertheless, Benjamin remained silent, with the smile on his face.

Seeing that, Duke Collin was startled, and immediately realized what this meant: The King was in Benjamin’s hands, so the power to take initiative was also in Benjamin’s hands. Under such circumstances, he no longer had the power to get Benjamin to do anything.

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Because of that, after a moment’s silence, he opened his mouth to speak once more. “Then… What do we need to do for you to let us meet with His Majesty?”

Benjamin nodded in satisfaction, saying, “To be honest, you don’t have to rush. How about this, I have some goods in hands now waiting outside the Crusader Gateway. Help me get them through today, and do not let anyone see what is inside. His Majesty should then be willing to meet with you, sir.”

Hearing that, Duke Collin was a little doubtful.

“…What are you trying to do, sir?”

Benjamin smiled. “You will naturally see it for yourself after a few days.”

Seeing that, Duke Collin could not help but feel slightly terrified. He had heard of Benjamin’s many feats, and had seen with his own eyes the terrifying sight of the great water ball in the capital. This young man before him had courage so great that it was shocking. He had never done things in a routine manner, so it was impossible to guess what kind of plans he had.

From the moment he had disappeared with the King, the nobles had realized how the situation was spiraling out of their hands. However, after many discussions, they had only opined that Benjamin would use the King as a hostage to secretly negotiate with the Church and gain some advantage from it. Who would have guessed that he seemed to have other plans?

The most frightening things was that, judging by their conversation, Benjamin’s plan seemed to be in motion already, although there had not been any news at all from the many spies that the nobles had sent out.

What on earth was he going to do?

“This… You are not planning to smuggle in a bunch of mages here, are you?” Thinking about this, Duke Collin gave a bitter smile. “If this matter gets out of hand, regardless of how we are still able to stand in the capital now, the Church would destroy us!”

“Don’t worry. The goods are goods, and at the end of the day, they will not be traced back to you,” Benjamin said steadily. “As long as you do not sneak a peek, and stay ignorant of what is inside, you won’t get into trouble.”

“…But of course.”

Finally, Duke Collin nodded and agreed to Benjamin’s request. Even in the Kingdom of Helius, pulling strings to smuggle in forbidden goods was not uncommon. Such business was difficult to trace back to the source, so indeed, he did not have to worry about getting into trouble.

However, he was still worried about the King.

“Director, sir, I will just say it straight. You already have His Majesty securely in your hands now, your goal… Is really just to fight the Church?”

Hearing that, Benjamin chuckled. “Of course.”

However, Duke Collin still felt uneasy. Everyone had their greed, and especially now that Benjamin had the King hostage, it was not impossible for him to covet the throne. If Benjamin ever had such intentions, the Duke was afraid that there would be unimaginable change in the Kingdom of Helius…

“Duke, sir, do you think I’m a person who has interest in those kinds of things?” Nevertheless, Benjamin seemed to have seen through his thoughts, and asked him, “If I wanted to, Icor and Carretas would have long been mine. Would our situation today still exist?”

“…I’m thinking too much.”

Finally, Duke Collin could only nod, and end the hasty meeting.

He still had many questions in his heart, but it was clear that Benjamin was not interested in answering them clearly. He was already standing at a disadvantage, from where could he gain the courage to continue his inquiries? To gain contact with the King, he could only turn around and get busy with the string pulling.

As for the aforementioned “mutiny of the royal army”, tacitly, neither of them mentioned it during their meeting this time, as though it had never been said by Duke Collin before.

Benjamin left the tavern and met with the King as well as the two siblings, hiding inside the remote and thick forest to the north of the capital.

“…So it’s tomorrow?”

Night had fallen. The King sat beside the campfire, lifting his head to look at the pieces of starry night sky visible through the slits amongst the tree branches. He had a complicated expression, excited yet somewhat indecisive.

“En. Tomorrow night, they will do as they have promised and put up the posters in all the streets,” Benjamin nodded, saying. “All the people of the Kingdom of Helius will see what a big lie the so-called Church has been.”

“But… The people may not believe.”

“It does not matter whether they believe. What’s important is that they know of another possible truth. The process of waking up always starts from barbaric ignorance to denial, and finally to recognizing the real world,” Benjamin said slowly. “Furthermore… Your Majesty, do you remember how every person in authority looked when they saw you? You must believe in the power you possess. It’s actually not less than that of the Church.”

Hearing that, the King nodded and said nothing more.

At that moment, their preparation work had been completed. The only thing left to do was wait, to wait and see what the entire situation would ferment into.

At the same time.

“Fuh… We’ve finally passed through.”

Outside the town of Crewe, a huge caravan of merchants continuously moved overnight. Boxes of sealed up “goods” were being loaded into the carts. The leading mercenary, sat atop his horse, turned around to look at the Crusader Gateway and gave a sigh of relief, saying thus.

“Quickly, time is running out.” Next to him, another member of the Academy’s Black Operation urged him on. “This is an urgent order from the Director. Dean Varys has already set out the routes, now we just need to separate and deliver the goods.”

The mercenary nodded, and halted the entire caravan. He took out a map from his bag and hurriedly divided the routes amongst themselves. After more than ten minutes, the huge caravan was divided into a hundred small groups, and like numerous, ordinary trading merchants, they hurried off towards various locations in the Kingdom of Helius.

In actual fact, only a few amongst them knew what they were delivering and who they were delivering to. However, it did not matter. The Black Operations of the Academy had already placed informants in various spots in the kingdom. They would meet up with the caravans and deliver batches of the printed posters into the hands of the people in authority.

Akin to countless of tiny cogwheels being put together, everything was coming together invisibly. Tonight, as the first cogwheel started to turn under the pitch black sky, this ancient, religious kingdom was being wound up for the first strike of the clock.

“…What on earth is going on?”

Meanwhile, in the main hall of St. Peter’s Cathedral, Havenwright, dozens of bishops were currently standing at the bottom with their heads lowered. Unmoving.

Grant had just returned from the Mountains of Magic Beasts. He stood on the podium, watching them who were as silent as the grave. His face was as cold as winter in December.